No More Halos
by WeAreTheMeta
Summary: Not understanding something is a very scary thing, so it's only natural for Master Chief and his loyal partner Cortana to be a bit... Off put by the situation when Chief wakes up from cryo. Friendly aliens, an evil empire, magic old men, and a very fat giant slug are only a few of the things this pair will encounter as they try to survive in a whole new galaxy far away from home.
1. Wake up WAKE UP!

**Sup. I'm WeAreTheMeta. And welcome to the first story of my re-purposed account.**

 **My updates will be erratic, so don't expect this to be a commonly updated story. New chapters could range from days to months apart, just to warn you. Anyway, I want to start this of by saying thanks for clicking on this story option, and have a fantastic whatever-point-in-time-you-read-this. Please follow, fave and most of all, review. Reviews are the fuel to my muse, so if you want updates more frequently, drop a review telling me what you liked, what you want me to fix, etc.**

 **Anyway, enough of this. On with the story**

* * *

 _ **Five Centuries From Now, In This Exact Galaxy...**_

 _ **The War Is Over!**_

 _ **As Arbiter Thel 'Vadam kills the Phrophet of Truth, the remaining Forces of the Covenant begin to splinter. With their leader gone and their forces scattered, the Covenant fall easily to the assaults of the humans, and their newly allied species, the Sangheili.**_

 ** _However, one malicious force remained at large: the terrible parasite known as the Flood, and it's sinister leader, the Gravemind. Master Chief and the Arbiter, accompanied by the newly re-acquired Cortana, meet up with UNSC Sargent Major A.J. Johnson and 343 Guilty spark at one of the remaining Halo arrays._**

 ** _Bent on defeating the Flood forever, our heroes decide to fire the ring prematurely, thus destroying both it and the parasite. However, Gulity Spark, the guardian of the array, does not take this well._**

 ** _In an insuring battle, 343 Guilty Spark claims Johson's life moments before he himself is destroyed by the Master Chief. Honoring the Sargent's final request, the remaining heroes fire the superweapon, tearing the flood to pieces._**

 ** _With their objective complete, Master Chief and his allies make a hasty retreat to the_** **Forward Unto Dawn** ** _, barely making it in time to escape a fired end in the Halo array._**

 ** _However, the day was not won fully. While fleeing, the_** **Dawn** ** _'s Slipspace Drive was damaged, resulting in the loss of half the ship, and with it, Master a Chief and Cortana. Our brave Spartan and his partner are now lost in space, with no means of rescue in sight..._**

* * *

"Chief? Chief? John, and you hear me? John?! Wake up!"

The voice echoed in Master Chief's head a few times, before his eyes snapped open.

It was the voice of Cortana. His A.I. and closest companion. He was dizzy for a moment, wondering where he was, before it all came back to him in one big rush. The Halo Array, Spark's betrayal, the death of Johnson. All of it. The last thing he remembered wa being consumed by the explosion.

To let Cortana know he was still alive, he activated the flashlight in his helmet. If Cortana had had a face at that moment, it would have been flushed with relief. "I thought I'd lost you too," she sighed, happiness evident in her voice. He looked around. They _Dawn_ was a complete wreck. Gravity was offline, so he drifted aimlessly

He spotted what remained of a window. The glass had shattered, so now there was nothing separating him from the empty void of space outside. He held onto the edge, just in case. The now occupied the back half of the ship as it floated through space.

"What happened?" He asked.

"I don't know," Cortana admitted. "When Halo fired, it shook itself to pieces. Did a number on the Ark," she chuckled bitterly. "The portal couldn't sustain itself. We made it through _just_ as it collapsed."

She paused for a moment. "Well, _some_ of us made it," she said in a resigned tone. Chief took a look around at the outside. They were utterly surrounded by stars. However, for some reason, they seemed... Wrong to him. Shaking the notion out of his mind, he turned and pushed himself down the corridor.

He knew what he needed to do now. Find the Cryo-Pod chamber, seal himself away, and wait for rescue.

However, there was one problem with that. A.I.'s couldn't Cryo-Sleep, and her chip would be irreparably damaged if she were to go inside the chamber with him.

He would need to leave her outside to wait it out, while he took the quick road. The thought sickened him to his stomach, leaving the entity that had become, for all intents and purposes, his adopted little sister to him outside, alone in the dark.

But there was nothing else to be done. They had no food, no rations, no water, no communications. Really, it was a small miracle that they had the Cryo-Pod chamber. Without it, Chief wouldn't last nearly long enough to see any form of rescue. Leaving Cortana to watch his back was much more preferable to leaving her to make sure he had a good funeral.

"But you did it," Cortana continued as he floated along. "Truth and the Covenant." he had finally reached the room he was looking for. Spotting the A.I. Terminal, he set himself down in front of it and took Cortana out of her place on the back of his helmet. Her avatar, blowing brilliant blue, appeared, and was looking at him with a somber expression.

She knew what was about to happen. And she excepted it. There was simply no other way. "The Flood. It's all finished."

"We did it," he nodded in agreement.

She was right. And Chief knew it. Victory had come at a heavy cost for so, so many. But the twenty-seven year war was, at long last, over. The war he had been fighting since his early years was finally done. No more dodging plasma cannons from a Phantom. No more stealing Ghosts on the battlefield to give himslef an edge. No more watching soldiers and ODST's get blasted out of the sky or from their seats in a Warthog, or watching Scarabs and Hunters crush good men to sacks of bone and flesh.

No more watching friends and family get slaughtered on the battlefield. Maybe when he was rescued, he could take some time to learn how to be human again.

It was all over at long last. He shelved his rifle, as well as the Covenant Energy Sword he had recovered from a Flood Combat form in the middle of battle, and the pair of M6's at his hip. With his weapons properly deposited, he made his way over to the nearest Cryo-Pod, climbing inside.

Cortana watched him sadly as the door began to close. "I'll miss you," she said quietly, bowing her head in sorrow. If A.I.'s could cry, it looked like she would be doing it at that moment.

As the door sealed itself, Chief looked at her with he same regret. "Wake me," he said. "When you need me."

She looked up at him, a bit startled. He hadn't said 'when we get rescued' or 'when something happens'. He told her to wake him when _she_ needed him. That made her smile a bit as her Spartan laid back, the effects of cryogenic sleep taking hold.

As he started to fade from concuousness, he could see Cortana look around hopelessly, as if loss for what to do next, before holding herself as all other light started to fade, leaving her own body as the sole source.

She looked at his still, cold form and bit her lip, hugging herself tighter to try and stave off the loneliness that was quickly taking effect. "Goodnight, John." With that, her avatar began to morph from the image of a young woman to a small, condensed sphere of light as she went into an 'inactive mode'.

And thus, the _Forward Unto Dawn_ was quiet.

* * *

 _"Gravity-inducing mass detected..."_

* * *

 **He could hear it faintly, the voice of his companion. He heard bangs and crashes.**

 **He could hear her screaming at him to wake up.**

 **He could see flashes of red and orange, he could feel the rumbling akin to an earthquake**

* * *

 _"Cheif! Get out of there! Open up you damn pod!"_

* * *

 **The blaring of alarms.**

 **The heat from the fire**

* * *

 _"Not good, not good, not good!"_

* * *

 **The franticness of her voice.**

 **The sudden need to leave.**

* * *

 _"John, get up!" She was yelling. "I need you! We need to go, now!"_

* * *

 **But she couldn't open the pod, she couldn't-**

* * *

 _ **BAM!**_

* * *

The pod was blasted open, and he was thrown rather violently from his sleep. He looked around frantically, trying to determine the scource of what was happening.

Everybting was either a wreck or on fire. The whole place was shaking, be Chief had to struggle just to get up. "Chief," he heard Cortana yell. "Chief!?" She sounded panicked. At her tone, his protective instinct took over. Nothing else mattered at the moment but getting them both out alive.

He tried to rise, but stumbled, coughing heavily. It wasn't from the smoke, but the feeling that his lungs, and the rest of him for that matter, were half frozen still. However, an explosion nearly going off in his face was about enough to make him feel nice and toasty again. His legs were still a little weak, though.

"Over here," he called, stumbling his way over to her. He had to get her out of that terminal, or she could be destroyed right along with it.

What had happened?! It felt like mere seconds ago that he was going under. Now ne was surrounded by fire and chaos. He stumbled, trying to get up as smoke began to clog his visor. He could see the faint outline of Cortana's body as she looked around frantically for him. She looked... Really different than she had when he went to sleep. More definition, longer, darker hair, different code lines.

All in all, a lot more human looking,

He noticed that the tray containing his weapons was on the ground next to her terminal, sealed shut with a transparent lid. She must have somehow secured them so they wouldn't be defenseless once they managed to escape. He grabbed it, and hauled himself up to face her. When she saw her Spartan ok, she broke out in a relived smile.

"Oh, thank God," she said with immense joy. "I thought you were incinerated!"

Instead of responding, he grabbed her A.I. chip. He briefly noticed that his armor looked significantly different, but he decided to wait till later to figure that one out. For now, he was content to just reach back and put her in the slot in the back of his helmet.

Despite the heat all around him he could feel the welcome chill going down his neck and head as his companion re-integrated with his neural implants. He smiled in spite of the situation. It was like welcoming a good friend back home.

"What's the situation?" He asked as he put the weapons case securely onto the holster on his back, and started to run, eavong the Cryo-Pod room in the dust.

"Eh, you know, fire, near-death, lots of explosions and manly stuff. The usual." While Chief was glad that she hadn't lost her Snark while he was out, now was not the time.

" _Cortana_ ," he said warningly, before skidding to a halt right before a flaming bannister came down, nearly taking his head off. Suddenly the entire gravity of the vessel began to shift, and Cheif fell sideways onto what was once the wall with an audible 'oomph'.

"The _Dawn_ found a planet by accident. I couldn't see it coming because the other half had the scanners," she blurted as he kept trying to find a way through the havoc. "Obviously a half-destroyed ship with no shields and badly damaged armor isn't going to do so well in re-entry. Just be thankful I upgraded your armor while you were out of it, or else you'd be a pile of guts in that suit."

He grimmaced, not wanting to think about it as he continued on his hazardous way. "Why didn't we just go into orbit?!" He questioned.

"Hell if I know," Cortana yelled back. "Maybe you're just _un_ lucky for once."

He shrugged to himself. Made about as much sense as anything in his life.

"Is there any way off the ship?"

"Besides jumping out at ten miles up?" Cortana said sarcastically, stressed to the extreme because of the situation. The only other time Chief had seen her this freaked out was during their mad dash off the Ark. "Well, the hanger is still intact... Maybe there's still a Longsword operable in there."

"What about the escape pods?" Chief asked as he leapt over one of the hallways. Everything was on its side now, and he could see the ground coming through the holes in the roof. As far as he could tell, it was a desert. A really, really big desert. Maybe the sand would help cushion his fall?

"All crushed," Cortana reported on the pods. "Just pray there's a working Longsword. If there's not... Well, you survived falling form orbit once, right? Think you could pull it off again?" He was silent as he followed the waypoint she had marked on his HUD for the hanger.

There was no time for small talk as he made his way through the burning ship. It was absoloute chaos and destruction as he raced through the place, making his way towards the hangar, determined to get both himself and his little friend off the doomed vessel as fast as he could. She still sounded pretty freaked out, enough to where his HUD was starting to glitch slightly.

"Can you seeing if you can access local data, figure out where we're about to land?" He asked Cortana. If he gave her something to do, it might help her calm down so that he could worry about the legwork.

"I'll see what I can do," she said. She began scanning for local networks, trying to find a local network. She did, though it was a bit strange, it would take her a few minuets to translate it.

He finally made to the hanger a few minuets later. There were several vehicles still inside, but only one that was capable of flight. A Hornet, hanging from the ceiling, secured by metal clamps. It was no Longsword, but it would have to do. Suddenly the ship broke the sound barrier, and went completely vertical.

He grunted as his back hit the wall, and had to rush away as the same tank that nearly killed the Arbiter tried a repeat report on him.

The massive, heavy combat vehicle slammed into, and ripped right through, the wall, impaling itself there. He grimaced a bit, glancing at it as he climbed over the trends. Ground floor was coming up fast, and he needed that Hornet of he was gonna make it out of this in one piece. There was orbital drop equipment around, and he didnt want to test his luck by playing ODST without the proper equipment.

He jumped, trying to vault his way to the VOTL craft, only succeeded in grabbing the end he of it. Suddenly the door to the hanger was ripped off, and Chief was quickly assaulted by heat and wind as they simultaneously rushed inside.

The alarms got louder and louder, the conditions got worse and worse. His grip was beginning to slip, and he couldn't pull himself towards the cockpit fast enough. The part he was hanging off of was ripped off, and he slammed into the turret of the tank behind him.

"Chief!" Cortana cried out as he began to black out. As his view of the sand below got closer and closer, he began to fade out of consciousness, still weakened by the abrupt awakening from the Cryo-Sleep. The last thing Master Chief heard as he began to go unconsciousness was the sound of metal screaming as it hit ground, and the sound of fire rushing up through the ship.

* * *

The Master Chief had been through his fair share of crashes.

More than that, even. But no matter how many times he chucked himself out of something high up, it was never any less painful when he hit the ground.

Johnson had been right, way back on his first mission with the Arbiter as an ally. Someday he was going to land on something that refused to break even more than he did.

At least, that was Cortana's thoughts as she waited for her caretaker to wake up. (And for any wondering how she knew that, Chief had told her some stories on the ride out from High Charity).

After the crash, the Spartan had landed in the fiery remains of the _Dawn_ , half buried in the sand.

He was perfectly fine, as far as she could tell. While he hadn't had the proper equipment, and he had been wounded, her armor upgrades had allowed him to come out of _this_ crash _mostly_ unscathed.

He still had some scrapes and bruises, but nothing that would impare him. Even his weapons case was miraculously still intact, the Energy Sword glowing a little from within.

But, like a concerned mother, or sister, she was planning on having a talk with him when he woke up. About what, she didn't exactly know, but she felt the need to talk sense into him again. He wouldn't listen, and she would continue to worry about him.

If she had a face, she wouldn't have known wether to laugh or to scowl at how much of a bonehead her Spartan was being. Most likely, she would smile. It was part of what made him Master Chief to her, and she wouldn't change a thing about him...

But for the moment, she was mostly content with being back where she belonged. At her Spartan's side, back in action. Though, considering that he was currently unconscious, the 'action' as a little lacking.

But she was fine with that, for the moment at least. The lonely years were over, and she had her best friend was back with her. No more spending the long hours half aware in 'inactive' mode, no more waking up in the darkness and having next to nothing to do, because everything she _could_ do was already done.

For now, there was no rush to go to the next adventure as she hummed contentedly in the A.I. chip slot. She could wait. Besides what she wanted to talk to him about when he woke up, there was the matter of the fact that she found out what planet they were on.

Though she couldn't see it, on the horizon, two twin suns were rising over the desert planet, the heat of the day shimmering in the distance. The planet they had landed on, the one they were now stranded on, had a very odd name in her opinion.

After all, who in their right mind would name a planet 'Tatooine?' All thought, she could have sworn she heard it somewhere before.


	2. Aliens and Riaders

Spartan-II's are used to pain.

They had been trained to endure it, to thrive in it, to complete the mission no matter what.

But the feeling of dropping out of orbit was beginning to get old for the Master Chief, as he had already done it once in recent times, and more than once before that. His head was ringing this time, though that part was probably from the explosion. He opened his eyes slowly, revealing the beautiful but moonless sky above, filled with stars.

"Have a nice rest, Sleeping Beauty?" The voice of Cortana said, hearing that he had woken up when he groaned.

He didn't really bother answering as he got up, hauling himself to his feet, using the wreckage to prop himself up as his sense of balance rapidly returned. He groaned again and shook himself, returning back to full functionality.

He looked around. Besides the large chunks of hull and burned metal, he was completely surrounded by sand. For miles, there was only sand. It was like the kinds of deserts you found in movies, with large sand dunes and and endless expanse. Only this place was slightly more tan than an actual desert.

He groaned and shook his head. This was not good.

"Not really," he answered her dryly.

Her face appeared in the corner of his HUD, looking pleased to see him up. "You should have been more careful. If you wanted that Hornet so much, you should have just had me lower it down for you," she chastised him good-natriedly.

He rubbed his head. "There wasn't enough time."

That made his A.I. companion scoff and roll her eyes, but she seemed to drop the issue for the time being, although he could tell that she was still irked that he had almost gotten killed again. "So, how are you feeling?" She asked.

"Well enough, all things considered," he said, stretching. He rolled his neck, before reaching back and taking the pack full of weaponry off of his back. He opened the lid, and took inventory of the contents. One MA5D Assault Rifle, fully loaded. One Covenent Energy Sword, slightly scratched, but clean of Flood matter. Two M6's also fully loaded, and five packs of ammo for each type of gun. Not much ammo, he would have to be conservative. The sword would certainly come in handy when the ammo ran out.

He holstered the rifle to his back, and the pistols to his right hip, while the sword was attached to the left. He was once again fully armed and ready for combat... If there was much combat to be had in a desert. But it was always good to be prepared.

Chief sighed, shaking his head mournfully. It was going to be a long next few days.

It was time to get to work. And the first step was establishing location. He pulled Cortana from his helmet so that they could talk face-to-face. Her body appeared over her chip in a flash of blue light, smiling pleasantly with her hands folded in front of her.

"Did you manage to find out where we are?" He questioned.

"Come on, Chief," she said, opening a data window in front of her, just big enough so that he could see it. "Have I _ever_ dissapointed you?" Not waiting for an answer, she moved several files onto the data window, bringing up the blue-tinted image of the planet, as well as several paragraphs of data.

"The language was a bit... Garbled, to say the least, but it was close enough to English that I could get _some_ data out of it."

"Garbled?" He didn't like the sound of that.

She turned back to him with a very perplexed expression. "Yeah. It sounded like a very, very messed up version of English, with lots of older dialect and some other languages mixed in. I can patch together the sentences well enough, but some words are still out of my reach, and I couldn't get all of it."

She looked a bit embarrassed about that, before shaking herself and getting back on task. "As best I could figure out, we're on Tatooine. Some of the descriptions I managed to translate include 'backwater', 'Sparsely populated,' and 'waste of dust and bones.' The rest is... Well, it's all nonsense. Gibberish, more like. There are mentions of some kind of 'Tusken Riaders', and things called 'Jawas'. And I can't seem to find anything on any local UNSC outposts or bases."

She shook her head sadly. "I need a local terminal or computer to get you more. Your suit's not giving me a very good connection to the network."

He nodded in understanding. "We need to get to the nearest town."

"Yes, but...," she looked around, and bit her lip. "It doesn't look like its very near. We'll need transportation. Hopefully there's something intact in the wreckage. Plug me in, and I'll begin scanning for active vehicle signals."

He nodded, and her body vanished in a flash of blue light as he returned the chip to the slot in the back of his helmet. After a few seconds, a waypoint appeared on his HUD. "I'm reading a couple of Warthogs over there. From what I can tell, they're in good condition."

"Good," he said.

Over the next few minuets, he spent his time both making his way over to the Warthogs, and scavenging for supplies. He had found several extra guns, such as a shotgun, a par of SMG's, even a Spartan Laser, along with their corresponding ammo. He loaded the weapons and ammo into a bag, and took it with him.

He also recovered a few days worth of rations and water. That was good, he'd be able to survive in the desert for a while in case the nearest settlement was far away, and if he rationed it well, he could make it last for a good long while.

As he went about his tasks, Cortana kept his mind occupied by chatting. She seemed a bit more conversational than she had when he had gone under, which he considered to be both good and bad. Bad, because the Chief was not a social creature, but good because it showed that she had recovered from her ordeal with the Gravemind.

There was also a certain... Anxiousness in the Chief. And irrational sense that something was _very_ wrong.

But he couldn't tell what. As far as he could assume, Tatooine was just some odd little desert planet colony with a unique internet that gave Cortana a headache. He had visited lots of places like this during his service, and so had she.

After a while, he finally came across the Warthog that she had mentioned. Like she said, it was in remarkably good shape for having just accompanied the Dawn out of orbit, in addition to becoming derilect for multiple years. There were even several tanks of hydrogen fuel attached to the back, and the turret seemed it be in order. All-in-all, a _very_ fortunate find.

Chief loaded his supplies and armaments into the jeep, tieing them down to the turret platform with some cargo cables he had scavenged. After making sure the tank was full and that all things had been taken care of, he jumped into the driver's seat and was on his way.

For a while, Cortana fell silent, and the only sound was the rumbling of the engine, and the sound of tires on the sand. Arguably, it was the most peaceful time Chief had since he had been inducted into the Spartan-II program.

And he didn't like it one bit.

He had been in war or war-like settings since childhood, and in that time, silence had only ever been a prelude to chaos. He felt even more anxious as he drove, wondering what his companion was up to inside his helmet.

Cortana was usually quiet during missions, yes, wisely getting out of the way so he could focus in combat. However, off duty, like they were now, she was usually a chatterbox. However, at that moment, she seemed to be lost in her own thoughts, something he thought she would have had enough of after all that time alone.

It was kind of... Creepy, how silent it was as he drove across the flat desert. The dunes had long-since flattened out, and now there seemed to be only an endless expandse of light tan stone all around him as the Warthog rumbled along the way, only occasionally hitting a bump or pothole in the ground.

After a while the twin suns of the planet began to poke back over the horizon, during the sky a deep red. Chief had no intention of admiring the sunrise, though, and ignored it as he kept going the direction Cortana had said the nearest settlement was in,

They had been driving for hours on end when Cortana finally spoke back up. "So... What do you think will happen when we get back?" She asked rather timidly, as if she was slightly scared to think about the subject.

It took Chief a moment to process the question. "What?"

"You know," she elaborated. "Now that the war is over. By now, the Covenant must be either in an alliance with Earth, or staying the hell away. Without the Prophets to guide them, they don't have a lot holding them together. And Arbiter probably disillusioned them pretty thoroughly by now. So... Now that there's no more war, what to you think will happen to us when we go back?"

That gave the Spartan a brief pause.

She was right. In all likelihood, Earth was experiencing its first dose of peace in nearly a lifetime.

And that meant the end of the life he has grown used to.

His entire pairing with Cortana was due to only two things: one, Cortana needed a protector and partner, and two, he needed something to aliviate his 'sociopathic tendencies'. Both reasons were due to the war, and now, without that conflict, he would likely now be put onto menial tasks, and his partner's considerable abilities would be needed elsewhere

In all likelyhood, he would be separated from his best friend.

He didn't want that, obviously. For him, it had only been a few days since recovering her from _High Charity_. The sense of guilt from leaving her to that horrible fate was still fresh. He still wanted to make it up to her. He wanted to keep the entity that he regarded as his little sister safe and protected, a task he couldn't do if they took her away. But... As long as it was for the best, he would have no other choice.

While he would never miss the war, and never look back at it fondly, he _would_ miss the people he had fought beside. Both of the Keys, Johnson... Even the Arbiter. At first the gold-armored elite had been just another alien, albeit an alien with a shaky alliance bargain.

But he had proven himself a worthy ally. He had come back for Chief and Cortana on _High Charity_ , he had offered condolences for the old Sargent Major's passing, and had tried to get them all out alive. All in all, he had made friends during the warm even if he would never admit it. And he still had a duty to go back to the UNSC.

And if it was to be that he would have Cortana taken away from him, he would most certainly miss her.

But by no means did that mean that he wasn't going to fight to keep her with him. If there was anything he could do to fight it, he would do it. She wouldn't go without a struggle. They had been through too much, relied on each other too much, to simply let go.

For a moment, he considered _not_ returning to the UNSC. His job was done. He and Cortana could just fall away into history books, retire somehwhere nice.

But that notion only lasted a brief moment. He was a soldier. Good soldiers always returned to their armies. And even though surrendering Cortana back to the chain of command would likely be harder than chopping off _all_ his limbs, he would have to. Even though it would mean becomeing a dusty war relic, he would have to go back. Even though most other Spartans were dead and his only friend would be ripped from him, he would have to go back.

It was the only thing he could do. The only option he knew how to consider. Any other method of thought had been scrubbed out when he became a Spartan, though he might be regaining some of it.

"I... Don't know," he said finally, with a bit of sorrow in his voice.

Cortana seemed to be having the same thoughts. "Me neither," she said, a bit dejected. She _really_ didn't want to be re-assigned. The A.I. didn't think she could take being in someone else's head long-term. Chief's helmet had become something of a home to her during the war, and she had missed her place in his systems with an agonizing ache while aboard the _Dawn_.

It would be hell for both of them, to separate. Suddenly neither party was all to anxious to get home.

Chief noted her sorrow, and was quick to try and offer some form of comfort. "Whatever happens though, we will be all right."

"I know," Cortana responded neutrally, before they both noticed that the Warthog was reading the edges of a settlement were coming up soon.

"Enough of this," Cortana smiled, her face appearing on his HUD, forgetting the angst almost instantly. "It's about time to make our triumphant return, Chief! Let's just hope the galaxy has managed to _stay_ saved while we were gone!"

Chief didn't respond as he accelerated the vehicle a bit, dust flying up behind them.

While he had apprehensions about returning to the UNSC, he wanted to get whatever was coming over with, and not live with the constant worry over his head. He wanted to know what his future would be, and he wanted to know soon.

He drove the Warthog over a dune, and the settlement came into view.

It was fairly large, made entirely of some sandstone-like substance. It was very esoteric and Arabic looking, with domes and sperical-roofed buildings alongside small, angular towers all covered in dust. Save for the space ships, it would look like something from a treasure-hunting movie set in Egypt.

There were strange ships of a design he didn't recognize flying around the place. Three years was a long time to be gone, but not enough for Earth to utterly re-design all their spaceships, and replace all the old ones with them.

His eyes narrowed from confusion about that. Something was _definitely_ not right here.

A feeling of dread built up rapidly in Chief's chest as he drove the 'Hog closer and closer to the settlement. He could begin to make out shapes in the crowd, shapes that didn't seem quite right. At first, they looked like they could have been wearing headgear or body paint.

But as he approached, a good number of the crowd didn't look... Human. Not at all. He slammed his armored boot onto the brake as he squinted, trying to see the populace better.

He used his helmet's zoom feature to see it better,mans what he found out shocked him.

There were humans in the crowd. Yes. But there was also a generous ammount if aliens. None of them looked like Covenant. There were no Elites or Brutes or Grunts, no Jackals or Enginieers.

But there _were_ lizard-like bug eyes people with lips that stuck out from their heads.

There was a fat blue... Thing with an elephant like nose and tusks that flapped about on tiny wings like a bee. He even spotted what looked like a walking rug wandering about, in a conversation with what looked like a human, save for the orange skin and large tail-like protrusions on the head.

Chief stared in absolute shock for a moment, wondering if his sanity had been affected in the crash. Even Cortana seemed to freeze from sheer confusion, her avatar on his HUD going completely still, with small 'error' messages flickering across the picture.

They were both like that for about a minuet, the Warthog still rumbling below them as they tried to wrap their heads around the situation,

"Um... Chief?" Cortana spoke up after a while, her picture on his HUD in-freezing.

"Yes?" He asked as if nothing was wrong,

"You... You see the weird looking, non-Covenant aliens interacting with humans like its the most natural thing ever, right?" She sounded hopeful.

"I do."

"Good. I thought I was going into rampancy." She frowned. "Now... What the hell is going on?"

* * *

The duo had stopped miles outside of the settlement Cortana had identified as 'Mos Eisley'.

As far as they could tell, it was a slum town. None of the inhabitants seemed to be particularly rich or well-off. Their clothes were sandy and tattered, and the people and aliens themselves were filthy.

Chief sat behind the vehicle, considering his next move.

"This makes no sense!" Cortana rambled from inside his helmet. She had slowly deteriorated into an infuriated state of disorientation when she saw the aliens in the village. "I mean, they are _not_ Covenant. It would be easier to understand if they were-and I'm not saying I don't approve, it's just- URGH!"

He winced as her frustration caused a spike of feedback into his helmet.

"Calm down, Cortana," he said sternly, startling her.

He reached back and yanked her out, holding her chip out in front of himself so that he could speak to her face-to-face again.

When she appeared, she was holding her head in a mix of rage and confusion, and Chief almost swore for a moment that her body flickered red. It was less than a second though, and he dismissed it as just fatigue getting to him. "Look, I know you don't understand, but we need to keep our heads here."

She scowled, but clanged up at him, and slowly lowered her arms. She 'took a deep breath' though the visual was mostly for show, and a little mental re-enforcement. "You're... You're right, Chief." She folded her hands in front of her, bowed her head, and seemed to calm down after a few seconds.

"Tatooine is... A bit stranger than I expected. Though, it does explain a few things..."

"Like what?" Chief asked.

"Like most of the stuff I couldn't translate. It must have been stuff pertaining to... You know, all that," she waved her arms in the direction of Mos Espa. "I just... Didn't quite get what I was looking at, so it all kind of translated into nonsense."

He nodded in understanding.

"I mean, I hadn't really completed analyzing all of it yet... Though now most of my guesses are a bit more educated. Gimme about an hour, and I should be able to translate the local language into something you can understand."

"Good." He said neutrally.

Cortana looked down for a moment, before looking back up, a slightly hopeful smile on her face. "It should be an interesting next few hours, though," she offered. "If we play our cards right, we may be able to leave without shooting our way out for once." She teased, referencing their exchange when he rescued her from the Gravemind,

"I thought you liked that part," Chief teased slightly in return.

"Eh, a little variety's always nice. And you don't have the Arbiter to cover our ass this time." She folded her hands behind her back as she watched her caretaker shake his head goodnaturedly at her snark. He was slightly annoyed, but she knew he loved it and so did he. It was part of her charm.

She smirked as her body vanished in a flash of blue, and she was re-inserted into his helmet. Chief looked back at the town. A large, sleek silver ship, very shiny compared to the rest of its surroundings,maws lowering into what he assumed was a space doc. He watched it for a moment, and he couldn't help but feel like the craft held some significance.

He unloaded a sniper rifle he had found in the _Dawn_ , and used it as a telescope to observe the town in front of them. "The aliens don't seem too hostile to the humans. At least, no more hostile than civilians are to their civilians," he observed as he spotted one of the bug-eyed long-lipped aliens, seemingly a merchant, arguing with human customer.

"It _should_ be safe to go down there. Still, I think we need to keep our guard up," he concluded. "If we're to get a good grasp on the situation, we'll need to talk to the locals."

Cortana hummed in agreement as she continued translating, picking bits and pieces of information, data and dialouge from the local data net to help complete the full vocabulary. He shrugged and put the rifle back in the pack, and sat back in the driver's seat to wait for Cortana to complete her work.

He reclined against the uncomfortable leather seat. He didn't have much to do but wait for Cortana to finish, so he closed his eyes and resigned himself to his own thoughts.

He began to wonder what had changed while he was gone. What had become of the Covenant races after Truth's death. Wether the Arbiter had been true to his word hand upheld the alliance between the species, or had he taken the Chief's apparent demise as an all-clear signal to turn on humanity, now that their 'demon' wasn't around to protect them.

He sighed a bit depressed. _That_ was why he had to go back. He wouldn't never be able to leave the UNSC behind. His drive to protect humanity rivaled his drive to protect Cortana. Even if it meant her being taken away, it would always be his instinct to return home.

 _Like a trained dog_ , he thought bitterly. But he would fit to keep her by his side as much as he could.

Suddenly the Spartan's movement tracker lit up with red dots, instantly gaining the Spartan's attention. He sat up, reaching back to grab his assault rifle from his back.

Cortana stopped her work, her functions shifting to combat mode. Chief looked around a bit, on guard as the red dots on his tracker shifted about, forming a circle around him on the rocks. He gritted his teeth and scowled.

Then a sound echoed from behind one of the structures. It sounded like a... Like a... For a moment, the sound itself both off guard.

"Was that a donkey?" Cortana asked.

It had honestly sounded like a donkey. Like a furiously braying donkey. He was started to get really pissed off at the planet. It was already looking like the strangest place he had ever been too, coming in close to tieing with Halo or the Ark.

He sighed and shook his head. At least it didn't have the blunt horror factor of his most recent visit to _High Charity_.

"I doubt it," he responded as he looked around, pointing towards the direction of each of the contacts one at a time. The donkey-like sound blared again as a beating bounded over one of rocks.

For all intents and purposes, the alien looked human. They wee covered from head-to-toe in sand-colored desert gear, their head completely wrapped in cloth, save for a strange looking breathing apparatus and a pair of large goggles. He had a few horn-like structures on the tip of his head, but Chief couldn't decide if they were actual horns or part of his headgear.

The thing was charging at him with a metal pole that Chief was sure was a weapon, making loud braying noises as he charged the Spartan like a berserker.

He raised his rifle in an instant, and fired, the still air suddenly penetrated by the sound of rifle fire as bullets sprayed from the barrel. The alien jerked and spasmed as he was shot, before falling to the ground, dead as a plank of wood.

"I'm assuming these are the Tusken Raiders you mentioned earlier," he asked Cortana.

"Most likely," she agreed as more began to pile out from behind the rock structures, either shooting at him or charging him like the first one had. Their shots were not bullets or plasma or heated spikes, all of which he was sued to. Instead they wielded rifles tha fired red lasers.

Nevertheless, his shields absorbed them as they hit, glowing gold as he ducked under the next couple of shots. As the charging ones neared, he holstered his rifle and grabbed the Energy Sword from his side, igniting it with a flick of his wrist. As the first one was in front of him, he thrust it through the Raider's chest, before ducking under the strike of the nest and cutting clean through its torso.

He grabbed one of his M6's, making a few shots at one of the riflemen. A few connected, and the gunner slumped over, dead, leaving only two making potshots at him as he cut and stabbed the ones trying to hit him up close.

He punched one in the chest, sending it flying back into the rock with a sickening crunch, before slicing through the nearest one's weapon to disarm it. He kicked the Raider in the knee, sending it kneeling to the ground, before stabbing it clear through the chest.

That left only the gunners left. He 'sheathed' the sword and drew his other pistol, duel-wielding them as he tried to hit the other two. They had better cover than their comrade, though, and he had a bit more trouble finding them off.

With a scowl of determination, he charged forwards, tanking the lasers as best he could, his sheilds lowering with every hit. They reminded him of Jackal snipers, and how much they managed to piss him off by damaging his sheilds so fast on the battlefield.

He quickly scaled up the rocks towards the one on the left. The alien began to panic, remembering what the Spartan had done to its comrades, and got up to run.

It was too late, however, as Chief grabbed his leg from the side of the rock face, and pulled him over. The creature brayed as it fell, and Chief delivered a swift end by a bullet to the head.

He looked at the last Raider, and it reacted with fear. The Tusken had never seen anything like this green-armored warrior. It wasn't a Jedi, that was for sure, but it wielded both guns and a glowing sword to defeat it's comrades.

It tried to follow the example of the other gunner and run, but the sound of an assault rifle being unloaded quickly halted that. The last raider fell to his need, blood leaking out the holes in his back, before finally collapsing.

Cheif didn't even acknowlage the kills as he jumped back down to the area with the Warthog, reloading his rifle as he did.

"How's the translation coming," he asked casually.

Cortana, who was also unperturbed by the assault and subsequent slaughter, having seen it done dozens of times to the Covenant, answered, "Just about done. Though, be warned, I might sometimes end up translating a word or two wrong. I'll need to assimilate the language a bit more, but for the most part, I can manage communications with them."

"Good," he said stoickly as he jumped into the driver's seat and started the engine.

The jeep rumbled to life, and soon they were on their way, the tires kicking up dust behind them. The corpses of the Raiders were left there to be forgotten, not even remembered significantly in the Chief's mind as he made his way to the little settlement.

* * *

 **Hey guys, just wanted to say sorry if this chapter was boring. It's mostly meant as a transition chapter, most of the interesting stuff will be in the next one. This story is set during Episode 4, when Luke and Obiwan are coming to get off of Tatooine.**

 **Anyway, you guys did awesome with the fave and follows, but not as good as hoped with the reviews. Please tell me what you think or what you would like to happen in this story. Each good review makes each chapter come faster. Until next time, stay awesome, and have a good night or day everyone.**

 **-WeAreTheMeta**


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